New Mexico's national forests — Lincoln, Carson, Santa Fe, Cibola — belong to all of us. But a rule change from the Trump administration is opening them up to large-scale industrial logging that could alter these landscapes for generations.

The Interior Department recently narrowed the legal definition of "harm" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), stripping habitat protections from threatened species like the Mexican spotted owl. For more than 50 years, damaging or destroying the habitat where these animals live, breed, and feed counted as harm under federal law. Now it doesn't.

That change gives logging companies a green light to operate in protected forest areas without legal consequence.

In New Mexico, the stakes are immediate.

The Mexican spotted owl, already down 9% in population during the 1990s alone, depends on the Lincoln National Forest and the Sacramento Mountains. The National Park Service projects the species could decline by 25 to 50 percent if habitat protections are removed. These same forests protect local watersheds, reduce flood risk in communities like Ruidoso, and draw hunters, hikers, and outdoor visitors who support rural economies across the state.

New Mexico's forests are a public resource, not a timber reserve for private gain.

Sign this petition to demand that New Mexico's congressional delegation fight this ESA definition change and restore full habitat protections for threatened species on our public lands before it's too late.